Could Britain become a cycling nation?

Boris bikes marked their two year anniversary this august. This cycle hire scheme from Barclays, nicknamed after the London mayor, has been a major success.  The cycle hire scheme was launched with 5,000 bikes and 315 docking stations back in 2010.  These were distributed across the city of London and in 8 different boroughs. Since the scheme began the number of cycles has increased to 8,000 and there are now 570 docking stations.The cycle hire scheme allows users to quickly hire a cycle at any of the docking stations and ride away. They can then be returned at any of the docking stations near to your destination. These stations have been generally well received, with an average monthly hire of 600,000.

Boris Bike Scheme

These bikes are perfect for short journeys and have been proven to be great for manoeuvring around a busy city. So why not roll out bike schemes, like this one, in all of the major cities in Britain. It has been announced that a similar bike scheme will be launched in Belfast, within the next 3 years. The city will invest in 300 bikes and 30 docking stations. Manchester has also been drawing up plans to become England’s number 1 cycling city, after research showed that there are more than 20,000 people in the city who want to cycle.

Manchester currently has 40 bikes available to hire at a cycle scheme at Piccadilly station, but the council will be hoping to rapidly expand on this. With the success of the scheme in London and the huge amount of publicity cycling has seen over the last few weeks with the Tour De France and Olympic successes, these cycle schemes could possibly be seen popping up in every major UK city.

Could Britain become the a cycling nation?

No one can deny the huge amount of positives that these schemes provide and if Britain's new found love with cycling continues, Britain could become one of the biggest cycling nations.